Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognize.

A/N: There's actually a line in Chapter II (which most people probably didn't catch) that connects to something you'll see here about the Force-sensitive trees. You see? I wasn't kidding when I said I had that planned from the start, however crazy it might be. Forget what I said about future chapters not being long. I'm writing to good breaking points rather than to word counts. Also, sorry for the wait. I had to go back to school (which is a 12 hour drive from my home to my college - America is bigger than most people think, including most actual Americans). And then the semester started, and I got sick, which often happens when the school stress starts up again. Anyway, here you go...

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! I'll be answering the reviews of actual users by PM from now on (if you have that set to available).

Guest (Jan 11 review): Thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

IV: Meetings

By the middle of the night, the storm had passed.

Anakin awoke in the very early hours of morning, a while out yet from the dawn. Still tired, and recognizing instantly that it was not danger which had woken him, he drowsily poked his senses out into the world before realizing that he felt warm.

Physically warm, though the last smoldering embers of his fire had died out hours ago.

Mentally warm, too.

Shifting a bit, he realized blearily that he was clutching his stave, which seemed to be the source of the warmth. He blinked and sat up, taking it in his hands. Had he been sleeping with it, like a little child with a soft toy?

Anakin closed his eyes and folded his legs under him in the traditional meditative position. But instead of resting his hands on his knees, he sat the stave diagonally against him, with one end next to his right foot and the length of it leaning on his left shoulder. Clumsily wrapping both arms around it, he bowed his head and touched his brow to the place where he had implanted his saber crystal in the mystical piece of windfall.

The whole stave still pulsed with warmth under his touch, and Anakin opened himself to this connection to what the Force-well was feeling.

Of course. The visitors were encamped in the grove. Vaguely he wondered what they were doing here and why they were on the ground rather than in a ship, but in another moment he let that go. Patience. When he met them, he would learn. Right now the trees had other news for him.

There was one presence in the camp that sparked a particularly strong pull of familiarity. That was what had set off the feeling that had woken him. The trees liked this person, and they were exceptional judges of character. What was more, the feeling they had sent to Anakin to convey this person's presence was warmth, of all things.

Warmth – which brought to his mind comfort, safety, healing.

And…home?

Focusing on the Force-signature of the individual, he found that not only were they sleeping by a tree in the grove, their hand rested on the trunk of the very plant from which the wood for the stave had fallen. The closer he got, the stronger the pull became, until it tugged at his very memories and he was jolted out of his meditation with a gasp.

Wide-eyed and shaking, he now leaned on the stave rather than it leaning on him.

It couldn't be! What was she doing here?

So the Council had convinced her to spy on that traitor from Scipio. Anakin wondered how they'd done it; perhaps they'd had to go to the Chancellor again. He'd heard that was the only way she agreed to go into hiding, back right before the war started.

Anakin was a little surprised to find himself vaguely sad about the whole business.

He clearly remembered the way he used to idolize her as a teenager. The brave and beautiful queen who shone so far above everyone else that she would've been well within her rights to look down on everyone she met, and yet was kind, so kind that she had been glad to have met a dirty slave boy who worked in a junk shop on a Force-forsaken crime planet. He had dreamed about her. Fantasized about being not a Jedi, but an ordinary young man, who would someday earn her love and marry her.

His angel.

Anakin didn't quite know what he was so sad about. That she had found happiness, if for brief periods of time, with other men? That the ardent flame of his adolescent crush had dimmed to the smoldering embers of casual adult admiration? That she had never met – might never meet – the man the slave boy had become?

That he had grown wise enough to realize that the angel was, if an exceptional example of one, just a human woman after all?

She was heading to the airspeeder bays this very moment, to leave the Temple for her new mission. He might never have this chance again.

Turning on his heel, he headed in that direction.

It was just as well he had, for as he reached the bay he saw her chief of security ushering her towards a speeder Anakin knew from experience tended to jostle its passengers on tight turns.

Hurrying up to the pair, he tried to smile through unexpected nerves.

"Not that one, milady! I mean, it works, but it's hardly to the standards of someone like you. I'd suggest…" He turned and pretended to scan the neatly lined rows of airspeeders before theatrically pointing to a blue-and-silver one whose innards he'd perfected himself. "…that one! She's by far the most trustworthy in our fleet." He held out his arm for her to take as she debarked the craft.

She smiled, nearly laughing outright at his over-the-top gallantry. Her eyes widened when she took his arm, and Anakin felt his own smile falter as her small hand rested on his own of hard metal and churning gears.

But she recovered her smile in an instant, and simply said, "How very noble of you, Sir Knight," and Anakin knew she wasn't just talking about the speeder.

He saw her off and still stood a while by the wide open bay doors to the cityscape beyond.

"Sir Knight."

So she hadn't recognized him.

What was the use of being the most famous Jedi in the galaxy, anyways?

The trek down to where the visitors – including Padmé Amidala – were just beginning to stir was not nearly as treacherous as it would have been last night, though it was still slower going than Anakin would have liked, what with the rocks still slick from the rain and the earth churned to slippery mud.

He reached the edge of the camp just as the light from the star of the Lycradel system began to peek over the horizon of the eastern plains and filter through the trees of the grove. He could feel the branches rejoicing, straining toward the nourishing sunshine.

He picked a sentry and headed toward them, being sure to make enough noise that he didn't startle them into shooting. When he heard a cry of "Halt! Halt, or I shoot!" he knew he'd been spotted. A man and a woman, both with blasters drawn, appeared out of the trees. They were wearing matching, but unmarked armor. It was odd – even mercenaries usually wore some sort of troop or team colors. They were clearly soldiers, but whose?

The woman, sharp-faced, with black hair pulled back into a severe bun, kept her rifle firmly aimed at Anakin's chest, but the man lowered his. The man was taller and younger than the woman, though he still looked to be in his early thirties. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and just a bit of stubble – all in all, fairly nondescript. On the outside, at least.

Anakin found he could assess them in a second.

The woman was hard and unforgiving. She believed in little other than merciless ethics, the stark juxtaposition of right and wrong and the duty to defend the right and condemn the wrong. She was that unpleasant mixture: an unkind idealist.

The man, on the other hand, was kind and gentle. He cared as much about others' souls as he did about their rights and freedoms. He was brave, and he liked to laugh, and – here Anakin caught a glimpse of a fair-haired woman, her belly swollen with an unborn child, reading from a datapad, sitting in a window seat – he loved his wife. He would be a very good father.

Anakin turned to the man. "What is your allegiance, soldier? Why does your troop make camp on Lycradel III? And what business does the Senator from Naboo have here? Your wife is lovely, by the way. You two should be very proud; I'm sure you'll be wonderful parents."

The man slung the large sniper rifle he had been holding back over his shoulder. "That's the Jedi, then." He looked at his companion. "Oh, for the gods' sake, Macheal, stand down."

"But how do we know he's a Jedi, Harker?"

Harker looked at her as though she'd grown a second head, and then turned back to Anakin. "We were shot down by a couple of old ARC-170s on our way down to the planet. We could've run while still in space, but Command – that's the former senator and her analysis team and the captain – thought that maybe the Jedi was still alive. We've contacted our people, and they're sending reinforcements and transport. I'll be honest, I didn't quite believe we'd find a live Jedi here, sir."

Macheal reluctantly lowered her rifle as Anakin approached and lowered the hood of his coat.

Harker's eyes widened, and then he stood to attention with a sharp snap of boot heels, raising his right hand in a salute. Anakin could feel the awe coming off him in waves and grimaced. "Please don't do that."

Macheal raised an eyebrow. "What, is he important?"

Harker reluctantly stood at ease and shot her an incredulous look. "That depends on whether you think the Hero with No Fear is important or not."

She blinked. "Are you trying to tell me that's Anakin Skywalker?"

Anakin supplied her answer. "I'm kind of famous for being really hard to kill."

Though a smile played around Harker's mouth, he still seemed at a loss, his earlier confidence gone in the presence of someone he clearly admired greatly. "Is…ah…shall I escort you into camp, Master Jedi?"

Anakin fought to keep from scowling. After five years of reflection, he had realized that many of his actions during the war were not that praiseworthy, after all. If he was going to get this kind of reaction from half the people he met, this was going to be very, very difficult.

"Fine. Just…just don't salute me again, okay? And don't call me Master. Or Jedi."

"Um…alright. What do you want me to call you, sir?"

"By my name, would be fine."

"Well, then. Uh, right this way...Skywalker."

Anakin supposed asking to just be called by his first name was too much, so he fell into step with Harker as the soldier led them through the woods.

"So what's the story with your troop? Who are 'your people'?"

As they headed further toward the clearing that housed the camp, Anakin got a crash course in the Alliance and the state of the galaxy at large.

It was both much worse and much better than he had anticipated.

Everything had gone to anarchy, so much so that an illegal vigilante group was running around risking their lives and freedom doing the things that had once been the work of the Jedi. Palpatine was still free. Many, many Jedi had been killed – though he'd already known that.

But, at the same time, Palpatine was not the ruler of the galaxy. He had been ousted from Coruscant, if not defeated. The Jedi still existed, even though they had suffered a grievous blow. The Republic still struggled on, even if it had lost power and the trust of its people.

They could struggle on. Eventually, rebuild and reestablish order.

A few yards from the camp, Harker stopped and asked him if he had any questions before they joined the others.

There was one question Anakin had been dying to ask since he knew that these visitors were supporters of the Jedi, that they fought for the Republic, even if they did so outside its laws. But faced with the opportunity, he found himself tongue-tied, paralyzed with fear that he might not like the answer.

"You guys keep up with the Order, right? Their official actions and stuff?"

"That's right. If only to stay out of the way of the Jedi while we carry out our missions."

"So…do you know if…that is…have you heard whether…" He trailed off.

Harker grinned and Anakin felt himself flooded with relief of a hurt that had waited five years for healing and a huge piece of his shattered world fell into place again.

"Of course we have. Master Kenobi's definitely alive, has been this whole time."

It took real physical effort not to slump into a limp pile on the forest floor and cry. The sheer release of an anxiety he had been holding in for five years felt as though it was going to turn Anakin's muscles and bones to mush. A niggling bit of worry still wondered how badly he'd hurt Obi-Wan when he'd decimated the training bond, but he shoved that thought into a dark corner of his mind for now. If Obi-Wan was out there protecting people and was still able to sit on the Jedi Council, he was probably fine.

Probably.

Anakin recognized Padmé Amidala the minute he stepped within the circle of the clearing, conferring with a middle-aged man he guessed was the captain of the downed ship. She was as beautiful as he remembered, though her Force-signature felt more sorrowful than it had been during his brief interactions with her throughout the war years.

It wasn't until Harker cleared his throat in the silence that Anakin realized the camp had indeed fallen silent. He glanced around, seeing more soldiers and a lot of ship's crew staring at the newcomer with awe as they all realized he was the stranded Jedi, alive even after five years marooned on an uninhabited moon. From the looks on a few faces, some recognized him.

The former Senator Amidala headed over with the captain in tow.

When she neared him, her eyes widened, and Anakin suddenly, inexplicably, unexpectedly found himself staring down the barrel of a sleek, silver blaster pistol.

At his side, Harker was protesting wildly. "But, my lady, this is the Jedi we're looking for. And it's General Skywalker –"

"I know." Her voice was calm and collected, cool and firm. Her dark eyes flashed.

Anakin suddenly knew what she was going to say next before she said it, and it nearly broke his heart.

In all his fears about facing the outside world again, he'd thought mostly of himself. Would he try to rejoin the Jedi? Would he go after Palpatine alone? Would he ever feel worthy to rebuild his lightsaber or rejoin old friends? Would he be able to make a difference in the galaxy without falling into his old ways of violence and rage and deep, abiding anger?

He had never thought about how people would react to seeing him alive.

A few wouldn't recognize him, even with his damningly iconic facial scar and gauntlet.

Some would react like Harker, in a revival of the old blind hero-worship.

And some would react like Padmé. They would remember.

She sent a sharp glare over to the assembled Alliance crew. "Yes, he's Anakin Skywalker. But have the rest of you forgotten that Anakin Skywalker was in Palpatine's inner circle?"

Even though he'd seen it coming, he couldn't help but flinch and look down, head bowed, heart heavy.

Because no matter how much he'd never wanted anything Palpatine had done to happen, and no matter how much of it would never directly be his fault, he had been close to the Sith Lord, had been around him a lot. And as long as the ashes of those younglings lay cold in the Jedi Temple's Halls of Memory, which would be as long as he lived, the question would haunt him.

How could he not have known?